From The Englishman,

we get a link to this article, well worth reading: Gun law and common sense:

More rubbish is written about 'gun control' than about almost any other subject. Allegedly 'tough' gun and knife laws are the liberal substitute for the death penalty, the left's way of trying to stop criminals from killing.

Like most 'liberal' solutions, they don't work against their intended target, and they attack freedom. It helps a great deal to be liberal about this if you a) don't think about it and b) know no history at all. Until 1920, Britain's gun laws made Texas look effeminate. There was no effective restriction at all on owning a firearm. Yet there was virtually no gun crime. Now we have some of the most restrictive anti-gun laws in the world, and gun crime is a serious and growing problem. Interestingly, the laws came first, the problem afterwards, and the recent ban on handguns was a completely logic-free response to the Dunblane mass-murder which preceded it.

On the subject of owning one himself, we get a touch of the 'I don't want the responsibility' attitude:
Actually, I don't want us to become a gun-carrying, gun-owning society at all. I have absolutely no desire to own a gun or have one in my house. They are even more dangerous (which is saying something) than motor cars, which I - likewise - don’t much like using because of the heavy responsibility of being in control of such powerfully lethal machinery. And any burglar who arrives at my house will be given a cup of tea (choice of Indian, China or herbal) and a biscuit, and asked to sign a release form stating that he has not been harmed, intimidated or upset in any way. I understand the liberal criminal law well enough to know that this is the only sensible approach for a British burglary victim, who doesn't want to be handcuffed and put in the cells.

Note that he does NOT say "I don't like them! Ban everything!", just that he doesn't want one. Which would be a fine thing, if he actually had the choice; but the government has made the 'choice' for him. And he full well understands that as things sit now, defending himself from a burglar could get him more time in jail than the burglar will get. Which is absolutely insane. And he'd better hope the burglar will settle for tea, cookies, and walking out with anything valuable.

And I also think that strict gun laws are wholly ineffective against their targets. The guns used in crime are hardly ever legally obtained. The people who use them almost invariably have criminal convictions, which would disqualify them from legal gun ownership anyway. So you can pass as many laws against gun ownership as you like. It will have precisely no effect on the level of gun crime. In which case, why do it?

Well, partly to keep the dim liberals happy, of course, which is important these days. But could there be another reason? If the state and the people broadly agree, about most matters, then the state can license the people to do such things as defend themselves, make citizen's arrests, thump burglars, even keep weapons. (Every Swiss home contains arms and ammunition, and the Swiss crime problem is minor, to put it mildly).

But if the state believes that criminals are to be pitied and treated, while the people believe that criminals need to be punished, then the state cannot trust the people any longer.

And there you get it: the state cannot trust the people. Which, of course, means the people need to be restricted in every way possible, and their lives controlled in every way possible. Like deciding that they need to be licensed to defend themselves, make citizen's arrests, thump burglars, even keep weapons. Mr. Hitchens seems to hold to the view that, even if things were loosened up, you should still have to get a license from the government to own arms, which- especially with a government like that which the British state has become- is too much; it allows the government to deny you for whatever reason they choose, or jerk your license 'just because we want to'. Like Bloomberg in NYFC* ordered the police to cut the number of licenses, just because he said so because he doesn't like them. And you have no recourse. In any case:

And the people, likewise, cannot trust the state, which is becoming - increasingly - a tyranny which watches, dockets, snoops and generally pries into our lives, and grants us smaller and smaller limits within which we may live if we wish to avoid being interfered with by its agencies.

Say it, brother!

Yet the one thing that will bring a rapid and powerful police response to a phone call is a claim that guns are being used by private citizens. And the one offence the courts will always punish severely is the one they call 'taking the law into your own hands'. Why? Because they are much more worried about their monopoly of force than they are about protecting us. Is that a good sign?

Actually, I object strongly to the expression 'taking the law into your own hands'. The law is ours and we made it for ourselves, to protect us and govern us, as a free people. Our freedom to defend ourselves against criminal violence is part of our general freedom to live our lives lawfully. We hire the police to help us enforce the law, not to tell us that we cannot do so. Sadly, the modern British law is not our law, but an elite law, based on ideas which most of us do not share. And the modern police are the elite's police, not ours, which is one of the reasons why they have vanished from the streets, where we want them to be. The disarming of the people, and the cancellation of all their rights to defend themselves, are bad signs.

I do have my disagreements with him, like here:
I don't want my neighbours to own guns, either. It shouldn't be necessary in a properly law-governed country.

Our small, easily-policed and largely urban society is deeply unlike the USA, where many people live hours from the nearest police station and can expect no immediate help if they are in dire trouble

"...shouldn't be necessary..." should have NOTHING to do with whether a citizen owns arms or not. It is a Right of free men, period. And he's noted a problem that is the same here or there: it doesn't matter if you live next door to the police station or miles away, if the police cannot or will not be there when you are in danger, you are on your own. And as has been pointed out by many, the best single method of self-defense, especially if you have any kind of physical handicap, is a gun. Like it or not.

Overall, a very good piece of thinking by Mr. Hitchens. Which will- predictably- cause the nanny-staters to scream and hold their breath.


*NYFC: New York Effin' City, per Kim
Speaking of which, The other day on Glenn Beck's radio show he had the former NYFC police chief on, interviewing him about- among other things- Rudy Giuliani, and asked about ownership of guns, specifically how difficult(as in 'damn near impossible') it is in NYFC for someone to get a permit. And he got the same song and dance that Giuliani has given: NYFC is 'special', like places like LA, Rudy was actually 'very friendly' to gun owners, and that- the real kicker- you had to make sure that only the 'right people' could own guns. Which in NYFC has meant, especially for carry permits, people with lots of money/fame/influence, and screw everybody else. As Beck put it, "I don't remember reading anything in the Constitution about only the 'right people' getting to have guns".